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If we implemented a carbon tax which makes oil producers pay for the environmental cost of oil, oil demand would probably peak even sooner.

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The oil producers are actually calling for a carbon tax, and have been for a while. It's the american coal industry, and their influence on the rest of the fossil fuel industry that's holding it back.

http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/press/press-releases/o...

Looks like the market cap for US traded coal companies is only $4 billion[1]. Maybe a US multi-billionare could buy them out as a philanthropic act and reduce mining to only that needed for chemical stock.

[1]http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/usmarkets/ind...

Petrol in the UK is about 70% tax, although that's a tax on the consumer rather than the producerm but it would end up being the same thing.

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